Closer To Love
by mockingjayne
Summary: Based on the deleted scene that had Wyatt tucking Lucy in with a kiss.


The sting races across his back, the puckered skin demanding it be felt. The hot shrapnel embedded in him, as much a part of him as the gaping hole in his chest that beats in the same rhythm of the steady sting of a pulse on his back. It's not lost on him which wound speaks more clearly, the scars acting as only physical reminders of what he'd lost. For his first thought upon waking up on his stomach, bandages laced around his torso, holding him together, was the fate of a certain historian.

He'd attempted to move, the sting moving from a slight annoyance to a screeching pain that shot like fire through his entire body. And still, he didn't stop. Gritting his teeth, he'd continued, before being pushed back down, pleaded with to have some sense. But he knew that was a lost cause, as with a downcast apology, the news had been delivered that Lucy was missing, presumably dead.

He hadn't believed it for one second. Even as they moved them to a bunker, sequestered from the rest of the world with nothing to do but stew in his own thoughts, he spent most of which looking for possible leads. He wasn't blind to the looks Rufus sent him, ones of pity and sorrow. He'd just squinted his blue eyes at him, jaw set, determined to set his plan into motion. The frustration bubbling over, a pair of brown eyes appearing whenever he closed his eyes at night. Panicked, pleading, he made silent promises to the image he couldn't shake, he would find her.

He tossed and turned, always the same image, the same promise, that of a million possibilities, suddenly taken from him just as quickly. And as the weeks passed, the possibilities dwindled down to one that Agent Christopher kept trying to anchor him as reality. But he couldn't. He couldn't let her go.

He was going to bring her home. It had been his job to protect her, and he'd failed. She was gone because of him.

Six weeks he'd spent, several holes and dents now adorning various places around the bunker, his knuckles in a permanent state of skinned and bruised, never quite healing before the next round.

The nightmares never got easier, each time, he'd find himself waking in a sweat, the cold panic of losing her only met with echoing walls with no real answers, footsteps down hallways, back and forth, as he paced.

Tonight hadn't been any different. He'd startled awake with a grunt, the fire lapping at his back, a blind panic sweeping over him. Swinging his feet to the edge of the bed, he pushes his hair back, noticing that his door is open. Assuming that Rufus had left it open before peacefully passing out, he makes his way out into the hallway, not even hesitating to follow the same path he'd found himself passing by for weeks.

Dread fills him, as the horror of his dream creeps on the peripheral of his vision, refusing to fully dissipate, instead teasing him with false assurances. The pinch of what was real and what had manifested in his head twisted.

Yanking open the door, expecting to be met with empty space, he finds her there. The soft glow of a lamp the only light he has to illuminate the silhouette. As his eyes adjust, assuring him that she was in fact before him. he doesn't hesitate a beat, walking further into the room.

Her blanket is pushed to the foot of the bed, and he smiles, as he reaches for the white sheet, remembering while she never liked to be confined, even with a blanket, she couldn't sleep without being covered. A detail he found himself recalling, having tossed and turned the last time they'd shared a bed, a sheepish grin appearing on her face when he'd woken to find she'd stolen them from his side, if you could even say a bed that small had sides.

Gently tucking her in, he bends, aligning his face with her own, a sigh of relief escaping him at how peaceful she appeared to be. The worry seemingly shedding off his scarred back, the steady rise and fall of her chest offering proof of the one thing he'd been certain of all those weeks, that she was alive.

A tendril of hair drapes across her face, shielding his view, billowing in the expel of air. His hand reaches out, his fingertips whispering across her face, pushing the stray hair back to its rightful place.

His lips quickly replace his fingers, softly leaving a kiss on her forehead, not wanting to wake her, nor linger. Merely a quiet assurance that while she may have lost everything, she hadn't lost him.

He closes his eyes, the light of her silhouette dancing in his vision, before disappearing into darkness, appearing again as he stares down at her one more time, securing her blanket once more before moving to leave.

He doesn't notice her dark eyes as they flutter open, having been awake for the whole exchange, burrowing down deeper into the blankets having been placed a top of her. Nor does he know that the reason her blankets had been flung to the bottom of the bed and his own door open, because she'd found herself wandering into his room as well.

The same need to assuage the doubts that this wasn't real, were felt by her as well, pulling them closer to love.

A small grin appears on her lips, as he slips out of the room, settling into his own bed, a deep sigh of relief.

 _Safe. Alive. Here. Real._

xxxxxx

 _hey, hi. another late night rambling because i couldn't help but try to piece together why he was bursting into her room late at night, and why she had been laying there, awake, blankets off. i swear, they're trying to kill me with all these deleted scenes. oh but what a way to go, right?_

 _anyway, thanks for reading._


End file.
